the president took off last night from hawaii, but there's a five-hour time difference. time is working against these lawmakers. they will have to figure out something if they want to do anything before new year's. it seems quite likely that we are going to go over this cliff and that whatever happens is going to have to be resolved after january 1. it has been looking like that before the holiday, but certainly now, particularly if you remember for congress broke for the christmas break, speaker raynor was not able to get the backup plan through his caucus, so there was no pressure on democrats to try to counter that immediately. senate democrats saying we passed a bill that raises tax rates on incomes over $250,000, we ran on this and this is what we are offering. house republicans were saying, no, we want to negotiate something, figure it out and send it to us. someone is going to have to move. who? the president met with senate majority leader harry reid before going to hawaii and his offer was to extend the tax cuts for incomes under $250,000, extend unemployment in